A History of Wandsworth Common

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Philip Boys (aka "HistoryBoys")

Wandsworth, the trustees could in 1766 advance £32,000 to the first Earl in retrospective payment for Spencer House, to secure it for future generations. [55]

The growth of the family estates around Wimbledon began in 1758, when Spencer acquired from the Duke of Bedford the freehold of much of Dunsford manor, in neighbouring Wandsworth parish. [56] The enlargement and landscaping of Wimbledon Park followed. [57]

Then came the purchase of the Bolingbroke estates in Battersea and Wandsworth.

Adding these lands [i.e. Battersea & Wandsworth] , north-east of the Dunsford property, was presented by Lord Spencer to his trustees as a plan to invest £42,000. [58] An agreement was signed in 1761, followed by the formal conveyance in May 1763. [59] The total price seems in fact to have been just over twice that sum: £85,000, calculated as £68,540 for the estates and the rest for the manorial rights, the advowson and other incidentals. £10,000 was paid immediately, with the rest following on in tranches; a [p17] mortgage of £30,000 back to Lord Bolingbroke formed part of the deal. [60]

To reduce the cost, Spencer retained only the core of the St Johns' Battersea lands [PB: i.e some land was sold off]. Before the purchase had even been formalized, some tracts of ground in the Nine Elms area were alienated. [61] Further sales of 1763-5 disposed of most or all of the St John freeholds between Clapham and Wandsworth Commons [PB: i.e. "between the Commons", which is why estates were built there]. [62] Among the purchasers were early villa-dwellers such as Christopher Baldwin and Isaac Akerman.

The break-up of the old landholdings here into smaller estates had a major impact on that district's future development.

The principal in all these arrangements, as in connection with Spencer House, was Thomas Parker, Spencer's lawyer and London manager. [63] Parker's name crops up regularly in the administration of the first Earl Spencer's Battersea and Wandsworth estates. There is no evidence that Spencer took a personal interest in the district. The manor house, already neglected, remained let until it was largely demolished in the 1780s. A hard-nosed attitude manifested itself when the parishioners asked in 1767 for their new lord to pay for repairs to the Falcon brook sewer, as Sir Walter St John always had done, but were peremptorily refused by Parker. [64]

The most important development that took place under the first Earl was the making of Battersea Bridge (1771-2), on which more is said below. But he was not present at its inauguration, and the only later contribution he and his son are known to have made to the bridge's affairs was an annual present of venison to the proprietors' dinner. [65] Nor did Spencer take much interest in the rebuilding of the parish church (1775-7), Parker once again representing him in negotiations with the Vestry.

The first Earl Spencer died in 1783. The relationship of his successors, the second and third earls, to their Battersea and Wandsworth holdings was different. Both were front-rank Whig politicians and landowners with many commitments, estates and mansions (notably Althorp in Northamptonshire,

[18]

and Wiseton in Nottinghamshire) and a love of rural pursuits. Spencer House was the main family seat in London; Wimbledon was little visited between the destruction of the Duchess of Marlborough's house by fire in 1785 and its replacement (to designs by Henry Holland, the 2nd Earl's regular architect) in 1801. [66 After that the Spencers were more often in south-west London, and there is evidence that the 2nd Earl stopped off occasionally in Battersea, en route between Wimbledon and Green Park. [67 In any case, the growing diversity and value of the Battersea and Wandsworth holdings required closer management. The state of the Thames banks, supposedly repaired and maintained by the Spencers 'at a very heavy Expence' but damaged by those who floated timber along the river, surfaced as an issue in 1792, while in 1796 there was a lawsuit between landlord and tenants about the upkeep of Battersea Bridge Road. [68 In 1781-2 government commissioners earmarked 80 acres at Battersea Rise as the site for a grand 'National Penitentiary'. The plan did not then materialize, but the threat came back in 1792-4 when Jeremy Bentham lobbied hard to build the penitentiary in the form of a panopticon, causing the growing community of villa-residents to mobilize against the project. In fact the 2nd Earl Spencer never intended to give up this land. [69] He did offer as an alternative a marshy patch in Battersea Fields, but his agent then fobbed Bentham off, informing him that Spencer was 'a willing Buyer but an unwilling Seller, in that and the adjoining Parish'. [70 ]So much is confirmed by the 2nd Earl's purchase of further manors in Wandsworth parish, Down in 1792 and Allfarthing in 1816. [71] In addition he paid the Archbishop of York over £10,000 in 1814 for the freehold of land in Battersea and Wandsworth which previously had been leased to the Spencers. [72 Thomas Parker having apparently retired around 1779, Thomas Harrison and his son John were the 2nd Earl's agents for some forty years

[19]

from the 1780s. Like Parker, they seem to have served the Spencers well, and knew the South London properties intimately: in 1807 John Harrison noted that he had visited some premises frequently 'and very minutely'. [73 He also tried to redeem what he could from the failure of John Ford, an engineer who had invested thousands on a grand woollen mill and adjacent cottages at York Place, only to fail in 1823-4. His endorsement of Ford's plea for remission of rent in view of his 'great Expenditure and Misfortunes' casts John Harrison and his master in a sympathetic light. [74 The 2nd Earl's closer oversight of Battersea is suggested by the appointment of his confidant and religious adviser, Joseph Allen, as vicar in 1808. Few of Allen's surviving letters to the Earl focus on the parish, but its affairs, agricultural or spiritual, come up often enough to prove their recipient's interest. [75 Allen's main achievement in Battersea was reforming Sir Walter St John's School, which Spencer, religious in later life, must have approved. He was no ally of his neighbours, the famous Clapham evangelicals, and confided to the Earl his suspicion of the promoters of the new church of St George's, founded to serve Nine Elms.

The 3rd Earl Spencer, or Viscount Althorp as he was styled during the long years before he succeeded his father in 1834, is described by G. M. Trevelyan as 'one of the most attractive and characteristic figures in all our long Parliamentary annals'. [76] An austere widower with a deep sense of honour, he was Earl Grey's main lieutenant in ramming through the Great Reform Bill. [77] In religious affairs he has been claimed as 'to all intents and purposes an evangelical'. [78] On acceding he saw to it that Allen, his old tutor, was promoted to a bishopric, and replaced him in Battersea with an aristocratic Whig of the same ilk as himself, Robert Eden. This he then capped by selling off the family property in Battersea and Wandsworth.

[20]

In retrospect that action looks puzzling and imprudent. The London & Southampton Railway was in the pipeline, the building-up of the district was already prophesied, and land values were bound to rise. But the 3rd Earl was determined to deal with the debt which had accumulated since his grandfather's day and spiralled under his acquisitive, book-collecting father. [79]

Already in 1826, during the 2nd Earl's lifetime but perhaps at Althorp's initiative, a rising Whig lawyer, John Shaw Lefevre, had been brought in as an intimate adviser to examine the Spencers' holdings and finances. He assumed special responsibility for the South London properties, living at first in Balham and from 1828 in Battersea at Terrace House (later Old Battersea House). [80] The upshot was the promotion in 1827-8 of a Battersea and Wandsworth Inclosure Bill, aimed at an obligatory redistribution of the 942 acres of 'common fields' (about half in each parish) in order to make them fully productive and valuable. The prospectus claimed that these fields were:

"as much the exclusive property of the owners of the soil as any Inclosed lands can be ... It cannot surely be for a moment contended that by any length of time or constant usage the public have acquired the right to ride and walk over fields of this Nature - over Meadow Grass, Standing Corn, and Asparagus Beds; in short, over land regularly cultivated for private purposes. Yet clear as this point is, there has been, notwithstanding, as much said in favour of the Public on this occasion as if the lands to be enclosed had been a Cricket Ground or a Bowling Green, and exclusively devoted to public amusement. [81]

The bill was opposed on several grounds: objections to giving 'wealth to the wealthy'; a fear that the fields and the commons alike would be covered

[21]

with housing; and a petition against it from Clapham parish. [82]

Its failure may have determined the 3rd Earl to sell, once he inherited. Shaw Lefevre remained his adviser, and in March 1835 confirmed that policy, though with 'much anxiety' for Spencer's interests. [83 A first auction took place later that year, with sales trickling on until 1838. Shaw Lefevre hoped to raise £160,000, but the Earl's agent Anthony Spedding was less optimistic. [84] Substantial sums also accrued to the Spencers from land sold to the London & Southampton Railway around the same date. But the paucity of records for the 3rd Earl precludes an exact reckoning.

Even the Spencer shares in Battersea Bridge were disposed of and the annual present of venison for the proprietors' dinner stopped, Shaw Lefevre informing them that the Earl had sold all his deer to the King. [85 The sale of Wimbledon Park followed on in 1846, after the 3rd Earl's death. [86 The failure of the 1827 bill and the subsequent 1835-6 sales are seminal in Battersea's history. They led to the creation of Battersea Park, in circumstances described in Chapter 5, and to the building-up of former manorial land in small parcels, without an organizing mind or management.

The 4th and 5th Earl Spencers' involvement with Battersea was necessarily narrower. As lords of the manor they presided over decisions on copyhold property and on the fate of Clapham and Wandsworth Commons.

Both these great open spaces fell partly in Battersea parish, but only Wandsworth Common was wholly under Spencer control. That it was more radically encroached upon than neighbouring Clapham Common may look due to their laxer management. But the circumstances of the two commons were different. Nor can the values of the 1870s be read back upon the 1840s and '50s, when neither manorial lords nor vestries yet looked on the commons round London as spaces for preservation and public recreation.

The 5th Earl Spencer, as significant a Liberal politician as his uncle the [22] 3rd Earl, took an equally serious view of his public responsibilities, but still viewed the commons in some measure as his personal property. That was most clearly expressed in relation to Wimbledon Common, which he sought to enclose in 1864, turning a portion into a public park and reserving the rest as building land, to include a large house for himself. [87]

But by then such projects were becoming politically impossible: and by the 1870s all three commons had passed out of the Spencers' hands and become lodged in public bodies.

That decade saw the effective end of the family's major interests in Battersea, though the earls continued to appoint its vicars; Canon Erskine Clarke, for instance, installed in 1872, was as careful to keep the 5th Earl abreast of his plans as Joseph Allen had been with the 2nd.

Survey of London 49 References

BL British Library

BV Battersea Vestry (records in Wandsworth Heritage Service)

PA Parliamentary Archives

RB Battersea ratebooks, Wandsworth Heritage Service

SOX Northants Record Office, Spencer boxes

WHS Wandsworth Heritage Service, Battersea Library, Lavender Hill

53. Joseph Friedman, Spencer House: Chronicle of a Great London Mansion, 1993, pp.31-3

54. Frances Harris, A Passion for Government: The Life of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 1991, p.349

55. Friedman, p.188

56. Dorian Gerhold, Wandsworth, 1998, p.29

57. Richard Milward, The Spencers at Wimbledon: 1744-1994, 1996, pp.21-2

58. SOX 231, deed of 23 April 1763

59. SOX 347: BL, Add. MS 75750: LMA, E/BOL/1, 2

60. BL, Add. MS 75750: SOX 347, deed of 3 June 1763

61. SOX 514, deed of Dec 1762

62. SOX 240, 514: BL, Add. MS 75750: LMA, E/BOL/5-10

63. Friedman, pp.344-5

64. BV Mins, 22 Feb 1766, 8 June 1767

65. WHS, D72/1, 5, 14

66. Milward, pp.50ff.

67. BL, Add. MS 75952, Joseph Allen to Lord Spencer, 17 Oct 1811

68. SOX 24, notice of 16 Feb 1792; SOX 216, law report of Nov 1796

69. SOX 514, letter of Thomas Harrison, 15 May 1794

70. The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, ed. Alexander Taylor Milne, 1981, vol.5, p.218

71. Gerhold, p.30

72. SOX 261/1, deeds of 1814: York Minister Archives, W/k/p153

73. SOX 255, notes on Thomas Dyke's proposals for St John's Place

74. SOX 255, bundle on Ford's premises

75. BL, Add. MSS 75952-3

76. George Macaulay Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill, 1920, p.214

77. Ellis Archer Wasson, Whig Renaissance: Lord Althorp and the Whig Party 1782-1845, 1987

78. Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement, 1988, p.239

79. Wasson, pp.328-9

80. F. M. G. Wilson, A Strong Supporting Cast: The Shaw Lefevres 1789-1936, 1993, p.64

81. SOX 261/2: see also PA, SLF/11/8

82. The Times, 22 Sept 1827, p.3; 21 Dec 1827, p.2; 22 March 1828, p.1; 27 March 1828, p.2

83. PA, SLF/11/21, March 1835

84. SOX 261/2, papers of 1835-6

85. WHS, D72/2

86. Milward, p.74

87. Ibid., pp.74-8

Follow up...

[Source: Survey of London: Spencer House.]

By 1769 all the houses on the west side of St. James's Place - including Spencer House (see page 518) - had gardens or terraces projecting into the park. In that year the Surveyor General tried to prevent an advancement of the building line in front of the houses further south near St. James's Palace, but he was unsuccessful (see page 507). The encroachments made by the Crown tenants were in themselves not unattractive and in the end it was the offices of the royal household, on the west side of Catherine Wheel Yard, which gave offence and spoilt the aspect of the park.

In 1795 Henry Holland, the architect acting for Lord Spencer, complained strongly that certain mean buildings on the south side of Spencer House were a great nuisance, and a disgrace to the royal park. He asked for a lease of the land on which they stood so that Lord Spencer might make a garden there. Lord Grenville, the Duke of Bridgwater and other occupants of houses overlooking the park, made similar representations. (fn. 146)

In his report the Surveyor General admitted that this part of the park was offensive. Many of the buildings to which Holland objected were used by the departments of the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain and the Board of Works as stables or as sheds for storage of oil, charcoal, dust, ashes or fire engines. There was also, it seems, a very large heap of dust and rubbish lying directly under Lord Spencer's windows and people were constantly employed there in sifting it. (fn. 146)

The Surveyor General considered that all the houses overlooking the park would benefit by allotments of the park land and he therefore drew up a plan showing his proposals for the demolition of the old sheds and the enclosure of appropriate pieces of land for gardens. (fn. 147) Negotiations between the Treasury and individual owners took some time but by 1798-9 the old sheds were demolished and leases of the gardens were granted to the various owners of the houses overlooking Green Park. (fn. 148) Since this date the boundary of this part of the park has remained unaltered.

[Source: Survey of London: Encroachments by Spencer House into Green Park. Very similar to WC - he's offended by the sifting of refuse beneath his window!]

Hello, Keith

How right Hoskins was!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_family

Rise to wealth

A close relative of Henry Spencer (died c. 1478) was John Spencer, who in 1469 had become feoffee (trustee) of Wormleighton in Warwickshire and a tenant at Althorp in Northamptonshire in 1486. His nephew, Sir John Spencer (died 1522), first made a living by trading in livestock and other commodities and eventually saved enough money to purchase both the Wormleighton and Althorp lands. Wormleighton was bought in 1506, the manor house was completed in 1512.

In 1508, Spencer also purchased the estate of Althorp with its moated house and several hundred acres of farmland.[5] He had grazed sheep here from the 1480s. Impressed by the quality of the land, he eventually bought it and rebuilt the house in 1508.[6] At that time, his estate and mansion in Warwickshire were considerably larger, and the house in Wormleighton was four times the size of Althorp.[6] In 1511 he made further purchases to acquire the villages of Little Brington and Great Brington as well their parish church of St Mary the Virgin, from Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset.[5]

By putting down roots at Althorp, Spencer provided what was to become a home for the next 19 generations.[6] In 1519 he was knighted by King Henry VIII, died three years later and was buried in the new family chapel at Great Brington.[5]

The Spencers rose to opulent prominence during the 16th century. Sir John Spencer's grandson Sir John Spencer (d. 1586) was a Knight of the Shire for Northamptonshire. The Spencers' administration of their Northamptonshire and Warwickshire estates was admired and often emulated by gentlemen all over England. Sheep from their pastures were purchased for breeding and it is probable that the family's success as farmers was rarely equalled in the century.[7]

So while we're on the subject of the Spencers and sheep...

The key source in debunking myths about Spencer family origins, it seems, is John Horace Round (1854-1928), Studies in peerage and family history, (London, 1901)

Scholarly but quite a laugh.

All best

Philip

https://archive.org/details/studiesinpeerage02rounuoft

https://archive.org/stream/studiesinpeerage02rounuoft/studiesinpeerage02rounuoft_djvu.txt

http://sole.org.uk/fact-and-fiction-in-family-history/

Don Steel, review in March 1996 of the new Family History Monthly,

What rather worries me however, is the uncritical way in which long demolished family tales have resurfaced.

The very first article in the first number on the Princess of Wales' ancestors " the Spencers of Althorpe " trots out their spurious descent from the Norman Despensers, Edward II's favourites, a family with which they had no connection whatsoever.

It was utterly discredited by that doyen debunker of phoney pedigrees, Horace Round, in his essay on "The Rise of the Spencers" in Studies in Peerage and Family History published in 1901 and has been frequently cited as a typical Elizabethan forgery in works such as Sir Anthony Wagner's English Genealogy (1960). Round describes the Spencer pedigree and arms as "a typical case of the Heralds' College providing a family, when it has acquired wealth, with arms to which it is not entitled on the strength of a pedigree concocted for the purpose".

John Spencer, the purchaser of Althorpe and Wormleighton in 1506/8 laid no claim to any other than his true origin - wealthy graziers on the Warwickshire-Northampton border. In a deed of 1497, his father_in_law William Graunt of Snitterfield (later to be the residence of Shakespeare's father) is described as "husbandman" " hardly a match for the scion of the Despencers! John was granted a coat in 1504 totally different from that of the Despensers and the first effigy, on which is found the arms on the magazine's back cover, a differenced coat of the Despencers, is that of Sir John Spencer who died in 1576.

Round sums up the creation of the fictional pedigree by the Clarencieux Herald, Richard Lee, in his usual forthright way:

"He took from the records Spencers and Despencers wherever he could lay his hands on them, fitted them together in one pedigree at his own sweet will, rammed into his composition several distinct families, and then boldly, certified the whole as gospel truth."

and later:

"The resemblance of the modus operandi here to that employed on the Russell family (the Dukes of Bedford) is so close as to tempt one to suggest that there was a "Complete Herauld" for the use of the College of Arms. In both cases a modern family had to be derived from a baronial house; in both, the entries in genuine records were fraudulently used and connected; and in both the worst crux was surrounded by the same device, namely, that of providing one of the baronial house with a wholly imaginary second wife, by whom he could be made the ancestor of the artful herald's dupes

The Tudor forgery obscures the real achievement of the Spencers of Althorpe. Alone, perhaps among the English nobility, the Spencers owed their riches and their rise not to the favour of a king or to the spoils of monasteries, nor even to a fortune made in trade, but to successful farming.

The Spencers owe everything to their passion for sheep - and enclosure.

In Tudor times, claims were made that the Spencer family descended from the illustrious (and blood-thirsty) Norman "De Spencer" family, and an elaborate coat of arms was contrived to prove it. But this was a complete fabrication.

In a lecture at Cambridge University, the great landscape historian W G Hoskins described the Spencer family as in fact "

jumped up sheep farmers

". Around 1500 they rented land around Althorp in Northamptonshire.

And wherever the Spencers went, enclosure followed. Villagers lost their access to the precious resources of local commons. The price of crops (particularly of bread) rose, and people were immiserated. Villages - including Althorp itself - became deserted.

Eventually the Spencers had enough money to buy outright not just Althorp, but also considerable areas across the county boundary in Warwickshire.

Such was the extent of harm done by enclosure for livestock production that in 1534 an act of parliament denounced rich farmers such as the Spencers as:

"divers persons to whom God in His goodness hath disposed great plenty," who studied "how they might accumulate into few hands, as well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle, and in especial sheep, putting such land to pasture and not tillage, whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns, but enhanced the prices of all manner of agricultural commodities almost double... by reason whereof a marvellous number of the people of this realm... be so discouraged with misery and poverty that they... pitifully die for hunger and cold."

Cardinal Wolsey ordered John Spencer ("Sir" John from 1519) to destroy his enclosures, and restore the land to tillage. But nothing was done and the Spencers continued to flourish. Althorp - the stately home that was built near the old deserted village - is today home to the 19th generation of Spencers.

As the genealogist John Round summed up:

"Alone, perhaps, among the English nobility, the Spencers owed their riches and their rise, neither to the favour of a court, nor to the spoils of monasteries, nor to a fortune made in trade, but to successful farming...

Those were days when a sheep's wool proved indeed a 'golden fleece'."

http://www.thebridgesgroup.org.uk/node/20

Earlier History

The boundaries of Wormleighton were first set out in the Charter of Saxon King Edwy in the year 956. The first recorded Lord of the Manor of Wormleighton was the Count of Meulan- a Norman who also owned extensive estates in France- in the survey made for the Doomsday Book in 1086, the year before the death of King William the First, the former Duke of Normandy and England's first Norman king following his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Count of Meulan is one of the ancestors of the families that later became the Earls of Warwick and of Leicester Later records from a survey made in 1634 show that Wormleighton in the 12th century was owned by Geoffrey De Clinton - Treasurer and Chamberlain to King Henry II and founder of Kenilworth Priory. It was Geoffrey de Clinton who had made Kenilworth Castle the great fortress structure that it became. His son sold the manor of Wormleighton to a Richard Walsh whose daughter and eventual heiress Petronella conveyed it in marriage about 1190 to Geoffrey Peche with whose descendants it remained until the time of King Henry IV when it passed to a William Montfort of Coleshill through his marriage with Margaret the heiress of the Peches family, who also became one of England's largest land-owning families. William was descended from the famous Simon de Montfort Earl of Leicester, who lived in the reign of King Henry III and who had also been based at Kenilworth, which by then was a Royal castle, but which he further extended. Kenilworth in 1265 was the scene of England's longest-ever castle siege after the battle of Evesham - a major battle in the so called Baron's Revolt. A further de Montfort descendant also called Simon Montfort was convicted of treason and executed in 1495 during the reign of King Henry VII - for "having countenanced the claims to the throne put forward by Perkin Warbeck" - and his estates were seized by the King who in the same year transferred the Manor of Wormleighton to William Cope the Cofferer of his Majesty's Household - an office known nowadays as the Keeper of the Privy Purse - at a rental of £13. 6s. 8d. per year. Montfort's rent had only been £8. The increase was made possible by the more profitable use to which Cope turned the estate by buying out the freeholders in 1498. Cope had married, as his second wife, Jane a daughter of John Spencer according to some historians at Canons Ashby in 1495. The Cope family had originally acquired Wormleighton in the reign of Henry Tudor, who came from the Welsh Borders and became Henry VII having acquired the throne after defeating Richard III, the last Plantagenet King, at Bosworth in Leicestershire. Cope had firstly married into the Harcourt family - also Normans - who came to England with Duke William of Normandy in 1066. Both Robert Harcourt and William Cope fought for Henry Tudor at Bosworth with the former being Henry VII's standard bearer. Thus, well before the arrival of the Spencers, the Manor of Wormleighton was an important property asset of people, who were major figures in early English history and the village was also a not insignificant centre of population. In 1332 there were some 26 households in the old village that were wealthy enough to fall into the taxable grade and when the village tax quotas were reassessed in 1334, Wormleighton paid 72 shillings against the local average of 59 shillings. Today, the remains of the old village can be seen only as humps in the ground. But there was a large fishpond there, with fish being of course a virtually obligatory food for Fridays in those days and fishponds valuable assets.

Enclosures acts and the arrival of the Spencer family

The enclosures, which were a series of government-enforced acts of possession, took place over a period of several centuries. The earlier ones in particular affected a number of villages, hamlets or "townes"- as they were sometimes called - especially in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire and it was as a result of an enclosure that the old Wormleighton Towne became a deserted village. Under the open fields system, many people had the historic right to graze animals and peasants didn't need to own the land to have to use of it. This system was the prevalent basis of agricultural in the Middle Ages and fields were divided into furlongs and strips and allocated to each villager. Whilst this suited the low subsistence farming aspirations of peasants, it was obviously a barrier to any major agricultural economic expansion based upon economies of scale and a drawback to the creation of enterprise-based agricultural wealth.

The enclosures acts gave the opportunity for larger scale farming and the accumulation of wealth by successful owners of agricultural land - particularly for sheep-grazing.

With Coventry being one of England's major centres for the wool trade, sheep-farming became an important industry for Warwickshire, although the Spencers later also sold their produce in London, Norwich and other centres. Hamlets and parishes to the North of Wormleighton, which included of those of Ladbroke, Capel Ascote, Hodnell, Wills Pastures, Upper- and Lower Radbourne, Priors Hardwick and Watergall to the West and Stoneton to the East made up sizeable areas of agricultural land, which were subjected to enclosures and became "deserted" villages. The families that profited from these included The Catesby Family, the Spencers from Hodnell, The Wilkes Family and the Drydens, who later settled at Canons Ashby. William Cope, upon his acquisition of the Manor of Wormleighton in 1498 had enclosed 240 acres of the open fields and in so doing depopulated 12 messuages and three cottages while Sir Edward Raleigh, (who lived in Farnborough and whose son married into the Cope family and who was seemingly acting on behalf of the Spencer family) is recorded as having wasted six further "messuages". Twelve ploughs were thus displaced and sixty villagers lost their livelihoods. These destroyed households were almost certainly in the enclosure, which is known as the "Old Town" lying to the West of the present Wormleighton village. (A messuage is a dwelling house with outbuildings and orchard/garden and thus was a sort of medieval farmhouse).

Wormleighton's moated medieval manor house was also at that time next to the original old village but was described by John Spencer as being "but a sorry thatched house". In the year 1506, the aforesaid William Cope sold his manors of Wormleighton and Fenny Compton to his cousin-in-law John Spencer Esquire, the great-grandson of Henry Spencer of Badby (the first of his family to settle in the County of Northampton) and the grandson of John Spencer of Hodnell - a small hamlet just to the north of Wormleighton. The Spencers had actually obtained a feudal tenancy of Wormleighton from the Copes in 1469 before they eventually purchased the freehold 37 years later for the sum of £2000 (an enormous sum in those days) and built their new manor house on its present site on the hill to the south of the parish church. At the same time they also acquired further estates in Fenny Compton. Seizing the chance afforded by enclosures of nearby land to go in for larger scale farming, ambitious families like the Spencers from Hodnell and Badby and their neighbours the Knightleys at Fawsley with whom the Spencers intermarried, grew rich and eventually attained noble status firstly with a knighthood and later the higher-ranking title of a baronetcy and then later still an Earldom. Historically before the 16th century these higher rankings of nobility had been almost entirely the preserve of the Normans and the Plantagenets, who were all of French origin.

In latter years, the Spencers were summoned on September 22nd, 1517 by 2 Commissioners acting under Cardinal Wolsey to attend a court of enquiry with a jury composed of sixteen Warwickshire gentry at Allesley near Coventry to investigate complaints of depopulation under the Acts of 1489 and 1515 "against the pulling down of towns". This case dragged on and John Spencer had to appear before the court of Chancery in1519 and the case was resurrected again in 1549. The Spencers denied that they had merely stolen land under guise of the enclosures act and that they had dispossessed poor villagers. They also made attempts to cover up their yeoman origins by trying to claim that they were of Norman descent by for example the quite spurious claim that their original name was De Spencer or Despenser which was the title of an important courtier in the Middle Ages. Actually the Despensers were a rather brutal and bloodthirsty family, who were involved with the de Montforts. Most of the Despensers took the Christian name of Hugh and were "self-seeking, greedy and corrupt bullies", which makes it somewhat surprising that the basically yeoman stock Spencers should seek to be associated with them. The Spencers argued with some justification that in creating their manor and farming industry, they had given employment to some 60 people - i.e. as many as there had been in Wormleighton village anyway. They employed 60 people to build their new Wormleighton Manor House in 1515

The Spencer family had initially rented enclosed land from some of the larger landowners in the late 15th Century and made enough money from their stock raising on depopulated lands to later purchase the land. For example in 1485 John Spencer, - the uncle of the above-mentioned John Spencer, who later purchased Wormleighton - who lived at Hodnell took a 100 years lease on all of William Catesby's lands in Hodnell and Chapel Ascote with additional land in Radbourne. This was mostly abandoned arable farm land that had been put down to pasture. When he died in 1497, John Spencer had land leases in Napton, Lower Shuckburgh, Burton Dasset, Ascote and Wormleighton.

The younger John Spencer, who was farming at Snitterfield on the edge of the Avon valley West of Warwick moved to Hodnell on the death of his uncle and it was he who really set in motion the great advances in wealth and social standing of the Spencer family. The aforesaid John Spencer subsequently received a knighthood from King Henry VIII in 1518 and when he died in 1522 and was buried in the mortuary chapel which he had erected in the Parish Church of Brington the church closest to his estate at Althorp (another depopulated village). It was noted that he had "amassed great wealth and acquired extensive estates by his industry of wool-raising; yet overall his character has been handed down to posterity as a noble and generous one free from avarice and strictly honest and just". The manor of Wormleighton has remained with his descendants in direct line ever since then.

Further expansions of the Spencer family fortunes

Following the death John Spencer in 1522, the fortunes of the family continued to expand with further acquisitions of grazing land in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire aided to some degree by the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the period of 1536 to 1539 although it seems in no case did the Spencers actually purchase an ecclesiastical estate directly from the Crown. Thus, the Manor of Byfield was purchased in 1557 which had belonged to Sheen Priory and the Manor of Wicken (1588) which belonged to Snellshall and those of Priors Marston (1602) and Priors Hardwick (1633) which belonged to Coventry were also purchased. The wealth of the Spencers also enabled them to make good marriages among important families and in due course the estate was wisely entailed so that successive father and elder son of the mainline had only a life-tenancy. In consequence, the estate remained a remarkably stable entity for long periods of time. Although a great deal of the wealth of the early Spencers was vested in land, a very large proportion was also held in stock on their pastures and indeed the holdings constituted an enormous, closely-integrated stock farm organised around two main centres at Wormleighton and Althorp.

Wormleighton with its great enclosed pastures and many small pens and folds was the main centre for livestock, whereas Althorp with its great park soon to be added became the principal residence though still functioning as a secondary stock centre.

An interesting innovation at Wormleighton was a new and unique type of hedging set up by John Spencer to form cattle runs. These hedges were massive with double ditches, double hedges and a tree-belt in the middle and ending up some 20ft wide. The lines of some of these hedges are still visible today. Later hedges planted by tenants for mixed farming are much narrower. The next 120 years or so saw the heyday of Wormleighton Manor. In 1554 the enclosed land owned by the Spencers around Wormleighton was some 4960 acres. Wormleighton manor /parish was much larger than it is today and included Stoneton and part of Fenny Compton, which was not enclosed until 1778/9 and Watergall and Wills Pastures, comprising 21 messuages, 21 tofts, a dovecote, 21 gardens.1,100 acres of arable land , 560 acres of meadow, 2500 acres of pasture, 240 acres of woodland, 20 acres covered in water and 540 acres of heath. A quarter mile to the north of the village there was also a windmill in what is named the Upper Windmill Field. There is a noticeable movement of air around this hill even on the calmest day. Importantly towards the end of this period and during the Civil War, the Spencer family acquired the Earldom of Sunderland as one of their titles. By the time of Lord Robert Spencer (1570 - 1627) - of whom more later - the family was amongst the richest in the land. Robert Spencer reportedly owned 20,000 sheep on his various estates and his income was about £8000 per annum - an enormous sum in those days. The Spencers it is said could at one time drive cattle or sheep to markets in London from Warwickshire and Northants without leaving their own land or land leased by them. Again, this tale is probably an exaggeration as there were several large estates between Althorp, Wormleighton and London, which would have acted as a barrier. To drive of stock to London historically took about seven days along drovers' roads

The enlargement of the Manor House

The manor house in Wormleighton became a semi-defensive Tudor structure built of red brick and of handsome proportions encompassing a large courtyard or quadrangle and two other yards used for shearing and caring for the livestock. The house is depicted in the Sheldon tapestry bearing the date of 1588 which is to be seen in Warwick museum. The fine Tudor building and strong gatehouse are depicted from the south with the square tower of the church rising behind. The original gatehouse was clearly more impressive than the one that is there today as shown in the Sheldon tapestry dated 1588 now in the Warwick museum. There was-on what is now the site of the 10 stone-built Victorian Estate Cottages, known as "the ten commandments"- the old wool yard and the great barn where sheep sales were held. Many of England's richest land owners came to buy sheep including Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester who came in 1571 and Lord Burghley. There was also a large garden and numerous outbuildings and the site was also famous for possessing a large bowling green, which was sited at the south side of the present day Wormleighton Hall. Incidentally, the erection of any building that - like Wormleighton Manor - had any form of battlements was subject to a kind of royal planning permission system.

Royal visit and connections

During the reign of Elizabeth 1st, it is thought that Wormleighton Manor was visited by her in August 1572 as part of her progress from Edgecote Manor via Long Itchington though to Warwick. Good Queen Bess as some may know had a habit of moving around the countryside and turning up to stay sometimes for lengthy periods with the more wealthy of her subjects in their manor houses in different parts of the country.

The Spencer family continued to expand their wealth and landholdings and their connections at the British court and even overseas. There is also evidence of their overseas activities and William the second Lord Spencer was sent by King James I as an Ambassador to the Court of Duke Frederick in Wurttemberg in Southern Germany. There is also the large memorial tablet, which is in the chancel of our church as described in the section on the church above, commemorating the death in 1610 of John the son and heir of Robert Spencer who died at BLOIS in France at the age of 19 years. It was during this time that the central sandstone-built Gatehouse of Wormleighton Manor was added 1613.

Changing patterns of farming

In the early part of the 17th-century prices of wool began to fall and the Spencer family began to withdraw somewhat from direct farming activities and took the opportunity of leasing more of their land holdings to up-and-coming farmers who were anxious to set up on their own as general producers of grain and livestock on compact holdings of a few hundred acres. Once again, this changeover from stock ranching on great enclosed pastures to mixed farming on small lease-holdings left its mark on the landscape. By 1634 William Lord Spencer - now a Knight of the Bath - appears to have made firm decisions and subdivided his land at Wormleighton into compact blocks for leasing to tenants. It was even rumoured in February of that year that some of the Wormleighton pastures might be leased for ploughing though in practice this probably did not come about for several years. Trees now adorned the land around the fishponds close by the former mediaeval village which had relinquished their old function as a source of food and had become ornamental ponds. So Wormleighton started to conform in a modest way to the custom of the time by having a park to match the house of a great lord.

The village, aligned along the street axis and three major components: the core of the settlement comprising the impressive manor house with its fine gateway, walls and great barns; south of this was a cluster of homesteads grouped along the street and bordering a small green with a "stockbank" or pinfold for stray cattle; finally to the north a smaller group of homesteads nestled near the church the outlying windmill quarter of a mile to the east. Apart from a single homestead near the sandpits, everyone lived in the village. This particular homestead was probably the first farmstead to spring up outside the village having perhaps developed from the former cottages of a master shepherd now occupying a convenient central position for an area to be leased. During the next few years leases on quite sizeable parcels of land were granted although some of the leaseholders found that stock raising as had been foreseen by the Spencers had lost its profitability and had problems in paying their rent. The answer to this problem lay in the end firstly in a change-over to more mixed farming on the large holdings of the Spencers with production of grain and meat for urban markets and secondly in a gradual allocation of land on leases to a new class of tenant farmer that arrived later on the estates. The still extensive Spencer agricultural land holdings are to this day basically let to tenant farmers

Civil unrest and war

With the accession of the Stuart dynasty to the English throne, the rise of Puritanism and the desire of the Parliamentarians to secure greater power at the expense of the throne, things were to change for Wormleighton Manor with the advent of the Civil War. The Spencers were Royalist supporters. Prince Rupert made Wormleighton his headquarters at the Battle of Edge Hill in 1642, which the Royalists should have won easily but were let down by a lack of discipline with their cavalry spending too much time chasing their initially fleeing enemy and allowing the Parliamentarians time to redeploy with reinforcements that arrived late in the day including cavalry commanded by Oliver Cromwell. As a measure of the family's wealth at that time, Henry Spencer loaned £10,000 to King Charles 1st which may have had something to do with his becoming Earl of Sunderland - cash for peerages was evidently as prevalent then as in the 21st Century.

But Baron Spencer having acquired his Earldom on the Eighth of June 1643 was killed some three months afterwards at the Battle of Newbury fighting as a volunteer in the King's army at the age of 23 The town of Southam - some few miles to the North of Wormleighton - was a Royalist stronghold and furthermore a location for the Royal Mint during the first part of the Civil War. Banbury to the South on the other hand though at certain times in Royalist hands was basically a Parliamentarian and Puritan stronghold although it seems to have changed sides several times depending on which side had the upper hand. This part of South Warwickshire suffered an almost continuous chronicle of violence throughout the duration of the Civil War from 1642 to 1646 and not just briefly during the time of the battle of Edge Hill as is sometimes imagined. Successive armies both Royalist and Parliamentarian crossed and re-crossed the whole area several times. Thus, Wormleighton was very much on the front line although defining what was Royalist or Parliamentarian territory is difficult as things changed so frequently so there were probably lots of people who sat on the fence in terms of supporting one or other side. History has shown that there is hardly a town of any size in England that was not somehow affected by the Civil War

Partial destruction of Wormleighton Manor

In 1645 Royalist forces from Banbury set fire to Wormleighton Manor causing extensive damage to prevent it becoming a parliamentary stronghold, which resulted in the house being for the most part abandoned by the Spencers as a family home and they thereafter used Althorp as their main residence. Now only the North side of the original building survives as part of one side of what was once a quadrangle. It was never again to be rebuilt. Despite the loyalty the Spencer family had to the Royalist cause having so great a possession as their largest manor house to a large extent deliberately destroyed must have been a bitter pill for them to swallow. However, thus with a major part of it having been destroyed, after 1645 the manor house degenerated into more of a large rambling farmstead as there was no compelling need for the Spencers with their fine house at Althorp to rebuild it. The population of the village remained fairly static between 1634 in 1734 if one considers the pattern of buildings on maps that are available and in 1730 12 houses and 15 families were recorded, which are figures are not far removed from those of two centuries earlier. The Spencer family line has remained intact and there have been many famous members of this family, who have served their country in various ways. Some have acquired certain notoriety whilst others have been more retiring, but it is hard to keep a family that still possesses so much basic wealth and land ownership out of the public eye for long

Famous associations

Wormleighton - via the Spencer family - has associations with the families of a number of people, who have assumed important roles in British and World history, which includes the ancestry of America's First President George Washington, one of whose ancestors was married here in St Peter's church in 1596 , when visiting Wormleighton from his home at Sulgrave in the neighbouring County of Northamptonshire and another Washington family member called George, who was in fact the great, great grand uncle of President George Washington, was also christened here in our church..

The Spencer name is also associated with the Churchills, whose most famous family members include John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough - the highly successful English general during the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted some 13 years from 1701 to 1714 and who served 4 different English monarchs.

The connection with the Churchill family came about because of the fact that the first Duke of Marlborough had no male heir and the third Earl Spencer's wife and her elder sister Henrietta were made co-heiresses by special dispensation.

Her son the fourth Earl of Sunderland died in 1729 without having married and so her second son Charles became the fifth Earl and when Henrietta, who had since become Duchess of Marlborough died without issue, the fifth Earl became also the third Duke of Marlborough.

In 1734 the fifth Earl left Althorp and with him went the Sunderland title.

His younger brother the Honourable John Spencer the inherited the house and the Spencer title but even greater fortune awaited him however as the favourite grandson of Sarah Jennings Dowager Duchess of Marlborough he was bequeathed all her personal property and this included Hollywell House near St Albans and a fine villa at Wimbledon as well substantial land. It was the Honourable John Spencer who used his wealth to become one of the leading artistic patrons of the era. He built the fabulous Spencer house overlooking Green Park and also commissioned Sir Joshua Reynolds for the family portraits which are now so valued.

We will not go further into the history of the Spencer family in the 18th and 19th centuries as it does not have any significant relevance for Wormleighton. However a 20th Century connection must be mentioned of course which is that owing to the family connections mentioned above Sir Winston Spencer Churchill - Britain's famous 2nd World War leader- was also an illustrious member of the family whose origins are to be found in our small hamlet in Warwickshire. There are also further significant connections of the Spencer family within the USA and indeed a large house was erected in Richmond Virginia modelled in part on the original design of Wormleighton Manor. And then, of course more recently, Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales became perhaps the most famous member of that family. It was even suggested at one stage after her separation from the Prince of Wales that she might come to live in Wormleighton, but she was reportedly not keen on the idea of burying herself in the English countryside, thus Wormleighton did not in the end re-attain some of its former fame by becoming a Royal residence. Currently Princess Diana's brother Charles Earl Spencer is our patron and in December 1998 he and his family attended a service of commemoration for the tablet erected in the church in memory of his sister The Princess Diana.

[PB: Notes December 2020

CHURCHILLS AND SPENCERS

[Why so may powerful "Spencers"? Brances of the family - they own Blenheim Palace (built for John Churchill), AND Althorp.]

The senior branch of the Spencers (later known as the Spencer-Churchill family) is currently represented by His Grace Jamie Spencer-Churchill, 12th Duke of Marlborough, direct descendant via the eldest male-line of Sir John Spencer, who was knighted by King Henry VIII in 1519 ...

...while the cadet branch of the family, the Spencers of Althorp who descends via the male-line from the younger son of the 3rd Earl Sunderland is represented by The Right Honorable Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer.

The Spencers were not just great sheep breeders, they also had an extraordinary ability to beget sons

[So is the "Churchill", by normal standards of patronyms, just a useful fiction?]

John Churchill (1650-1722) 1st Duke of Marlborough & Sarah Jenyns or Jennings

Churchill was the hero of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) in the Low Countries that in effect prevented France from taking over or merging with the Spanish Empire.

The great battles include Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), Malplaquet (1709)

By the Peace of Utrecht a balance of power in Europe was agreed (involving e.g. Spain, GB, France, Portugal, the Dutch Republic, Portugal and others, preventing France becoming the hegemonic power.

Britain acquired Gibraltar.

British historian G. M. Trevelyan argues:

"That Treaty, which ushered in the stable and characteristic period of Eighteenth-Century civilization, marked the end of danger to Europe from the old French monarchy, and it marked a change of no less significance to the world at large, - the maritime, commercial and financial supremacy of Great Britain.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Utrecht

Victories that led to Queen Anne promising him a great house - palace, no less - Blenheim Palace - at Woodstock, near Oxford.

John and Sarah had 7 children, including:

John Churchill (1686-1703), Marquess of Blandford, who died at 17 (at university) - before his parents. Another son died young.

There were no more living sons but there were some daughters. So what was to be done?

An act of English parliament in 1706 allowed the 1st Duke's daughters to inherit his English titles. [How unusual was this?]

Following her father John Churchill's death in 1722, the Marlborough title passed directly to his (elder) sister Henrietta (nee Churchill) Godolphin (1681-1733), who became the 2nd Duchess of Marlborough

Lady Godolphin became suo jure [in her own right] Duchess of Marlborough.

[What about her mother, the 1st Duchess (Sarah) - since she was still alive at this time, were there two Duchesses?]

Sarah lived on until but it seems she disliked Blenheim - which was less a grand family house and more an immense ceremonial mausoleum built to lionise her husband and demonstrate to the world how powerful Britain had become under Queen Anne.

Henrietta, the 2nd Duchess, had borne five children during her marriage to Lord Godolphin, the eldest of whom that was still alive was

- William Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford (c. 1700 - 1731), married Maria Catherina de Jong, no issue

- Lord Henry Godolphin (b. c. 1700) [died young?]

- Lady Henrietta Godolphin (1701 - 1776), married the 1st Duke of Newcastle, no issue

- Lady Margaret Godolphin (b. c. 1703)

- Lady Mary Godolphin (1723 - 1764), married the 4th Duke of Leeds and had issue. ( It was rumored that Lady Mary Godolphin was not, in fact, the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Godolphin, but rather daughter of the playwright William Congreve and Henrietta Godolphin.)

[But when] the Duchess died in 1733, aged 52, the title went to the son of her (by now dead) younger sister Anne (nee Churchill).

Anne Churchill had married a Spencer, so the Marlborough Dukedom acquired the title. Churchill became Spencer [or Spencer-Churchill?].

Spencer's (second son Charles (1706-1758), by now the 5th Earl of Sunderland.

[i.e. he was the 1st Duke's grandson]

He had already inherited the Sunderland title from his older brother [Robert Spencer, 1701-1729, no issue) in 1729, becoming 5th Earl of Sunderland...

And then the Marlborough title from his aunt, Henrietta, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough in 1733.

Charles handed over the Sunderland estates to his younger brother John.

[This is the point when the branching occurs - "the senior branch of the Spencers (later known as the Spencer-Churchill family) is currently represented by His Grace Jamie Spencer-Churchill, 12th Duke of Marlborough, direct descendant via the eldest male-line of Sir John Spencer, who was knighted by King Henry VIII in 1519 ...

...while the cadet branch of the family, the Spencers of Althorp who descends via the male-line from the younger son of the 3rd Earl Sunderland is represented by The Right Honorable Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer.

[PB: This the Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough's favourite nephew... John who will inherit Wimbledon and be the father Earl Spencer of Althorp... Spencer was only seven when his mother [Anne nee Churchill] died, and he was brought up by his grandmother Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. He was educated at Eton College in about 1722, and he undertook a Grand Tour through France, Switzerland and Italy between 1725 and 1727. His grandmother determined on a political career for him.[2]

In 1732, Spencer succeeded his cousin, William Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford, as Member of Parliament (MP) for Woodstock, a seat he held until 1746.

In mid-January 1733, Spencer inherited his father's family's estates in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire (including Althorp) and Warwickshire and his grandmother, the Duchess of Marlborough's property, including Wimbledon Park.

]

He was involved in the foundation of the Foundling Hospital, famously championed by Thomas Coram, William Hogarth and others. Spencer is listed alongside these gentlemen as one of the organisation's founding governors.[2]

[Interesting - establishing a family tradition of creating philanthropic institutions?]

The separation of branches c.1730 was not absolute - there continued to be connections - which will have a profound impact on Wandsworth and Battersea in the 1760s.

Charles 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706 - 1758)

Charles, having handed over the Sunderland estates to John, did not acquire Blenheim for another 11 years. Charles did not obtain Blenheim Palace until Sarah, the dowager duchess, died in 1744.

Charles was the second son of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland and Lady Anne Churchill, the second daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and his wife Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.

Charles 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706 - 1758) & Elizabeth Trevor

Their daughter, Lady Diana Spencer (1734-1808), married Frederick St John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke (1734 - 1787).

________________

Earl of Sunderland is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England.

The first creation came in 1627 in favour of Emanuel Scrope, 12th Baron Scrope of Bolton. The earldom became extinct on his death in 1630 while the barony became either extinct or dormant (see Baron Scrope of Bolton for more information on this title).

The second creation came in 1643 in favour of the Royalist soldier Henry Spencer, 3rd Baron Spencer of Wormleighton. The Spencer family descended from Sir John Spencer (d. 1522) who acquired the Wormleighton estate in Warwickshire and the Althorp estate in Northamptonshire. His grandson Sir John Spencer (d. 1586) was a Knight of the Shire for Northamptonshire. The latter's grandson Sir Robert Spencer represented Brackley in Parliament in the late 16th century. In 1603 Sir Robert was raised to the Peerage of England as Baron Spencer of Wormleighton. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, William, the second Baron. He had previously represented Northamptonshire in Parliament. His eldest son was the aforementioned third Baron. In July 1643 he was created Earl of Sunderland in the Peerage of England. Lord Sunderland was killed at the Battle of Newbury in September of the same year.

He was succeeded by his two-year-old only son, Robert, the second Earl. He later gained great distinction as a statesman and notably served four times as Secretary of State for the Southern Department.

His eldest surviving son, Charles, the third Earl, also gained prominence as a statesman. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Privy Seal, Secretary of State for both the Northern and Southern Departments, Lord President of the Council and First Lord of the Treasury. However, his political career was ruined by the South Sea Bubble of 1720.

[A seriously political family!]

Lord Sunderland married as his second wife Lady Anne Churchill, second daughter of the distinguished soldier John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and Sarah Jennings. The dukedom of Marlborough was allowed to descend to the Duke's daughters and their sons after a special Act of Parliament was passed in 1716. Sunderland was succeeded by his eldest surviving son by his second wife, Robert, the fourth Earl. He died unmarried in 1729 at the age of 27 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles, the fifth Earl. In 1733 he succeeded his maternal aunt Henrietta Godolphin, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough as third Duke of Marlborough. The barony of Spencer of Wormleighton and earldom of Sunderland have remained subsidiary titles of the dukedom ever since. Earl of Sunderland has been used as the courtesy title by the Duke's grandson.

The Honourable John Spencer, fourth son of the third Earl of Sunderland by his second wife, succeeded to the family estates in Northamptonshire in 1733 after his elder brother inherited the dukedom of Marlborough. His son John was created Earl Spencer in 1765. The Honourable Robert Spencer, second son of the second Baron, was created Viscount Teviot in 1685.